News & Blog
UW Glaciologists uncover truths about hidden lakes on West Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier
UW Glaciologists, Alexander Huth and Ian Joughin,and Noel Gourmele of the University of Edinburgh used data from the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 to study a sudden drainage of large pools below Thwaites Glacier. Thwaites Glacier is one of two fast-moving glaciers at the edge of the West Antarctic ice sheet. The recently published study in The Cryosphere shows four interconnected lakes that drained in eight months. The glacier sped up by about 10 percent during that time, showing that the glacier’s long-term movement is fairly oblivious to trickles at its underside.
Read more at The CryosphereUndergraduate, Eliza Dawson, won the Outstanding Student Paper Award from the AGU Fall Meeting in December
Eliza Dawson, an undergraduate of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, won the Outstanding Paper Award from the AGU Fall Meeting in December for her work relating changes in inter-hemispheric dust loads to variability of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).
Read more at AGUDargan Frierson and Judy Twedt create "The Sound of Earth's Fever"
With NASA releasing the 2016 global temperature data, Dargan Frierson and Judy Twedt made quick work of the high temperatures. Using the global temperature data from 1880-2016, they created a song about the Earth's global temperature. Lower notes mean lower temperature, and higher notes are higher temperature. They chose notes from a musical scale and added drums just for effect. Dargan and Judy state that they "pause in 1977, a critical year for climate" because "scientists were confident at this point that heat-trapping gases from fossil fuels were the main way humans were influencing the climate".
Listen on SoundcloudSarah Myhre talks to Yale Climate Connections about being a young climate scientist
Postdoc Sarah Myhre recently talked to Yale Climate Connections about being a young climate scientist studying climate change and its effect on her moral responsibilities.
Read more at Yale Climate ConnectionsBradley Markle helps relate temperature spikes in the Northern Hemisphere to Southern Ocean winds
A new study, recently published in Nature Geoscience by a group of UW researchers - Bradley Markle, Eric Steig, Cecilia Bitz, and T.J. Fudge - aims to show that "fierce winds circling Antarctica — an important lever on the global climate — shift quickly in response to Northern Hemisphere temperature spikes".
Read more at UW TodayStephen Riser and a team of UW researchers are helping to lead an effort to monitor the Southern Ocean
Stephen Riser, from the School of Oceanography, is a chief scientist of an expedition to better understand the Southern Ocean by dropping robotic floats around Antarctica to monitor carbon dioxide uptake. He and other UW researchers are currently two-thirds of the way through a month long voyage.
Read more at UW TodayGerard Roe helps connect climate change to individual glacier retreats
Gerard Roe, of the Earth and Space Sciences department, recently published a paper on glacier retreat as evidence of regional climate change. Gerard says, "because of their decades-long response times, we found that glaciers are actually among the purest signals of climate change." This method uses a signal-to-noise ratio that relies on observational records for glacier length, local weather, and the basic size and shape of the glacier, but does not require detailed computer modeling. The technique could be used on any glacier that had enough observations.
Read more at UW NewsEric Steig was mentioned in The Washington Post
Eric Steig, of the Earth and Space Sciences department was mentioned in The Washington Post about the current destabilization of Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica.
Read more at The Washington PostPCC Graduate Twila Moon talks about mapping Greenland glaciers
Glaciers and ice sheets move in unique and hard to map patterns as observed by satellite images that help map the speed of flowing ice in Greenland, Antarctica and mountain ranges around the world. Twila Moon, a graduate of the PCC, talks about using this evidence to help map out glaciers in Greenland. With the new database, she can study the movements of more than 240 glaciers, which comprise nearly all of the outlets from the ice sheet.
Read more at The University of BristolTom Ackerman and Stephen Gardiner - Can a Philosopher and Scientist Co-teach a Class on Climate Engineering?
Tom Ackerman and Stephen Gardiner discuss the success and limitations of a social science and geoscience partnership with a co-taught course in Winter of 2015. The course aimed at trying to provide scientific and ethical foundations to students through climate engineering.
Read More at Climate Engineering Assessment